Yes on K

I live in San Francisco and I am voting Yes on proposition K. Prop K would turn the Upper Great Highway into a permanent ocean-side park. The Great Highway is already closed to car traffic on weekends, which is how we know it's really lovely to have it as a park. The experiment started around the same time as many of San Francisco's Slow Streets, as a way to let people safely get outside and get exercise during the COVID-19 shelter-in-place period.

I'm not going to tell you all the good, sensible reasons to vote Yes on K. Just the reasons I'm voting for it.

Ocean Beach Park will be awesome #

First, it's awesome and we know it's awesome. When the Great Highway is closed to cars but open to pedestrians and bicycles, you can take the N, L, or 48 right to Ocean Beach and then just mosey right across to the sand. Or you can walk around on the highway for a bit if you don't want to get sand in your shoes. Also, while the ocean is loud and covers up most of the car noises, it's quite pleasant not to have the sound of a highway as you walk to the ocean. Whatever you do, it's low-stress, safe, and all around nice.

October 27, 2024 was the fourth annual Great Hauntway, the outdoor Halloween trick-or-treating party on the Great Highway.

The road is falling into the sea #

Second, the damn thing is falling into the sea anyway. Or maybe it's a bit more that the sea is rising up to meet it. The dunes creep onto the highway and cover it with sand rendering it impassible anyway quite often. Then the city spends a bunch of money clearing it. But you can't beat the sea and the sand always comes back. Chances are, we're going to have at least some sea level rise and the whole falling into the sea problem is not going to get better. The sensible site I linked above can tell you exactly how it's falling into the sea. Point is, it's not even practical to keep this thing as a road. I don't get why people like me who don't use personal cars should fund a futile fight against the sea just so car drivers can be mildly convenienced. On the other hand, people can walk and bike on slightly sandy roads just fine.

People like car-free spaces but have trouble imagining them #

Third, some people are going to bitch about how turning the Great Highway into an awesome park is a bad idea, but after it's done, they'll actually like it. I don't think we could have had the Slow Streets program if it hadn't been put in as an emergency measure during COVID-19 shelter-in-place. It would have been unthinkable to most people to just close roads to through traffic and let people walk in them. But the unusual situation let us try it out as a city and we discovered it was awesome. I lived off of Sanchez Street in 2020 and getting to walk down the middle of the street was the most amazing feeling, the one nice thing about an otherwise pretty shitty year. Slow Streets have transformed neightborhoods and brought people together. There are now more people using and hanging out on Sanchez Street than there ever were in the before times.

JFK Promenade is a similar situation. JFK drive in Golden Gate Park was closed to car traffic on Sundays for years and years. It was really nice! But then when people wanted to turn part of it into a permanent pedestrian and bike zone, it was a whole damn fight^[1]. Then it passed and JFK Promenade has been a thing for a few years. It went from being really quite nice to fucking awesome, as its permanently pedestrianized status has made it possible to add art, seating, pianos anyone can play, and ping-pong tables. Food and drink trucks ply their wares. Kids and adults bike and skate, and instead of the sound of car traffic, you hear people playing music and get to overhear the most wonderful conversations.

The momo truck plies its wares on JFK in front of the Conservatory of Flowers. I friggin' love this momo truck.

When I went there two weeks ago, I overheard two different conversations where one person explained to another how JFK Promenade came to be and how much they liked it. Paraphrasing, it went something like this.

"Let's go this way. There's more art." "This is awesome!" "Yes, it's permanently closed to cars now. But when they first tried to set it up, a lot of people were opposed to it and tried to stop it." "Why would anyone want to stop this?"

There was also a hilarious person on a rental bike doing a little video of himself, presumably talking to a friend.

"You should come visit me. It's literally always like this."

If we manage to pass K, I think it will end up being like JFK Promenade. People will love it and wonder why anyone would have opposed such a self-evidently great idea. It's going to be a neighborhood hangout and a destination.

A scene from the Great Hauntway on October 27, 2024. The entire stretch was jam packed with kids and adults in costumes enjoying trick-or-treating. San Franciscans were undeterred by the fog.

I love the little birds #

Ocean Beach has wonderful birds, including my two favorite shorebirds, sanderlings and snowy plovers. Snowy plovers are endangered and Ocean Beach is one of their breeding grounds. If we turn the Great Highway into a park, it will allow more dune restoration and reduce the noise and environmental pollution that harms the snowy plovers. While sanderlings aren't endangered, restoring the habitat will surely be good for them, too.

Ocean Beach Park #

Doesn't that sound nice? If my reasons for voting Yes on K aren't convincing but you're open to being convinced, check out https://www.oceanbeachpark.org/ They cover the boring stuff like budget, and how people who drive cars can still drive their cars to get places even if one of the hundreds of roads in San Francisco is no longer available to them. They also talk about the whole falling into the sea issue with more rigor than I've done here.